The Teacher: A shocking and compelling new crime thriller – NOT for the faint-hearted! (28 page)

‘I’m going to take Abbey to some of the places I’ve told her about. There’s nothing to stop us any more.’

Adrian saw the beginnings of a smile on Parker’s face. He knew this was the right thing to do. He didn’t think he could live with himself any other way.

‘Good luck, Parker.’

Adrian watched Parker leave. He couldn’t believe that in his mind it was OK to let this man go, after the things he had seen, but it was, it was justified, he shouldn’t be in prison. He walked over to the sofa and sat next to Tom, he could see he was still groggy. Adrian watched the beautiful sight of Tom breathing heavily as he slept off whatever Harry had given him. He should call an ambulance, but first he had to figure out how the hell he was going to explain any of it. He knew the shit storm that was about to hit was going to be incredible. He was ready for it. He had his son back and that feeling of hopeless emptiness was gone, he never wanted to feel that way again. There were now less than a handful of people in the world that Adrian trusted and that’s how it was going to stay. He picked up the phone and dialled Andrea’s number.

‘Andi, I have him, I have our boy.’ He barely believed the words as he said them but they were true. He heard Andrea sobbing and burying her face in her husband and him consoling her. He hung up and lay back on the sofa, finally allowing himself some rest.

He couldn’t imagine the full story of what had happened coming to light, not if Harry was right about the magnitude of the corruption. There would be cover-ups and there would be lies. Adrian knew that his whole perspective had now changed and life would be more complicated than ever, but it’s still better than living your life blind. All things told, he would rather know the truth, no matter how ugly it was. With his hand on Tom’s head he waited for the circus.

Katerina Diamond was born in Weston in the seventies, where her parents owned a fish and chip shop in the Greek community. She moved to Thessaloniki in Greece and attended Greek school where she learnt Greek in just 6 months. After her parents’ divorce, they relocated to Devon. After working in her uncle’s fish and chip shop as a teenager, she went (briefly) to university at Derby, where she met her husband and had two children. Katerina now lives on the East Kent coast with her husband and children. This is her first novel.

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